Nuclear War Against Iran

[Guest guest]

A

Fri, 6 Jan 2006 02:41:07 -0500

Nuclear War Against Iran

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nuclear War Against Iran

Address:http://www.rense.com/general69/nuke.htm

 

Nuclear Attack On Iran Imminent? - Deja Vu Again

Address:http://www.rense.com/general69/ress.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interviewer: Don Nordin

Guest: Michel Chossudovsky

 

I have on the line today Michel Chossudovsky, see http://

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky and

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ONE311A.html .

 

He is a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, and we

will basing the programme today on an article that he has recently

written (entitled " The Anglo-American War of Terror – An Overview " )

that is on the website: http://globalresearch.ca and it centers

around the problems in the Mid East particularly (in) Iran.

 

Welcome to the programme, today, Michel.

 

Well, it's a pleasure to be on the programme. Greetings and best

wishes to everybody in British Columbia.

 

And you wanted to focus on the issue of Iran. Now, it seems like we

are looking at a situation building up with Iran and it is centered

around the terrorism, used as a pretext for this agenda that they are

building up, this global do mination agenda.

 

Q. Do you want to just get into that a bit, Michel, and maybe you

could talk around the issue of the imminent war against Iran?

 

For the last year or so, the United States, Israel and Turkey have

been preparing an aerial bombing of Iran. This went into the planning

stage back in November of 2004. In other word s, it's over a year now

and essentially this operation is using the pretext of Iran's nuclear

programme to bomb its nuclear facilities. In fact, what is actually

being planned is a nuclear war and that nuclear war has nothing to do

with Iran. It has to do with nuclear weapons, which are slated to be

used by the United States and Israel and I have looked into the

various documents behind this.

 

We are not talking about surgical strikes. That's what's being

presented to public opinion - that the United States is going to

embark on surgical strikes directed against Iran with a view to making

the world safe r and it's all based on the idea that Israel is

threatened and so on and so forth. In fact, what is being planned is

an all out nuclear war using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran.

And this is something, which is not widely known, although it's

confirmed in a number of military documents. (The air assault) would

use tactical nuclear weapons, which have an explosive capacity between

1/3, and 6 times the Hiroshima bomb.

 

I should mention that these tactical nuclear weapons, which are often

referred to as 'mini-nukes,' are n ow in a sense re-classified - in

fact they are considered as conventional weapons and the distinction

between conventional and nuclear weapons has been blurred following a

decision in the U.S. Senate, December 2003, which essentially allows

for these so-called mini nukes to be used in conventional war theatres

and in fact, the senate decision was reached after a propaganda

campaign waged by the Pentagon, which enlisted nuclear scientists to

the fact these nuclear bombs were harmless to civilians, quote,

unquote. That's exactly the term they used, that these nuclear weapons

are " harmless to civilians " because the explosion is underground, and

the system of delivery would be very similar to the conventional

bunker buster bombs.

 

But what is now very disturbing is that actually the timeline for this

operation has already been announced - March of 2006. In other words,

in the next three months. This (timeline) has been confirmed by the

Israelis. Prime Minister Sharon has made the statement. His

political opponents, in particular Benjamin Netanyahu, have confirmed

that they are also in agreement with this posture - that they will wage

surgical strikes against Iran. But if you look at in a broader

context, you will realize that this is not strictly an Israeli

operation. It's an operation, which involved the United States,

Turkey, and Israel as the main military actors but which is firmly by

America's coalition partners in NA TO. In other words, NATO has given

its approval to this military operation. There are no dissenting

voices within the Atlantic military alliance as occurred prior to the

war in Iraq and in effect, I think that there won't be many dissenting

voices in the United Nations Security Council, and eventually a

pretext will be built that Iran is a threat to global security in view

of its nuclear programme, and that is of course a very controversial

issue.

But as to whether this is up for civilian use or for military use, but

there is no evidence that Iran at this stage is developing nuclear

weapons.

 

But what we're dealing with here is the fact that the United States

wants to launch a nuclear war. o.k.? And if it launches a nuclear with

Israel, what's going to happen is this is going to affect a much

broader region. The war is going to extend to the entire Middle

Eastern region; it's going to lead to radioactive contamination over a

large part of that region and, in other words, if we thought we were

in a situation of chaos and war crimes in Iraq, we really haven't seen

what is planned ahead because this is a major military operation which

is being envisaged.

 

I have been reviewing a num ber of military documents to that effect,

and they are now talking about what is called Concept Plan 8022. Now

Concept Plan 8022 is a plan, which would be implemented by US Strategic

Command, which is located at the Offutt Military Base in Nebraska.

Essentially, it's an air force base. And this Concept plan essentially

consists in what they call " global strike " ; it combines both

conventional as well as nuclear strikes, and it integrates the actions

of the navy and the air force and then of course, it would be

implemented from US military facilities in the Persian Gulf or in the

Indian Ocean, in particular, Diego Garcia, the military base, the

extremely large US facility strategically located in the Indian Ocean,

which is a joint navy/air force base in Diego Garcia, in the Chagos

Archipelago and from there they would implement the aerial

bombardments and also the missile attacks.

 

And so if this plan goes ahead, we are really entering into a World

War III scenario. I believe we are already in World War III. World

War III started at the beginning of the post Cold war era, with the

wars in Yugoslavia, but this is a new stage in the deployment of

America's war machine with devastating consequences for the future of

humanity.

 

Now these targets - they are supposedly aiming at these nuclear

facilities. Are those located near to populated areas?

 

Well, absolutely, they are heavily populated, and I don't think they

will limit these strikes strictly to these facilities. I should

mention that even if they use conventional weapons against these

nuclear facilities, the explosions at those facilities would in fact

trigger the spread of radioactivity over a vast area because these are

nuclear power plants, a nd so on, which would be targeted. But from

what I understand, reading some of the background material, is that

what is

contemplated is an operation in terms of air strikes similar to what

Donald Rumsfeld implemented in March 2003 on Baghdad, prior to the

actual invasion. In other words, this 'shock and awe' blitzkrieg type

of bombing would occur and that is confirmed in fact by statements of

the U.S. military and we are talking about a very large deployment,

again as I said, comparable to the US bombing raids on Iraq at the

outset of the war.

 

Now when you speak of these tactical nuclear weapons having the power

of anywhere from 1/3 to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, and we've seen the

damage that those bombs did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would think

that even ones with 1/3 the power - I guess they would be the ones

that maybe they would use to take out a nuclear plant - would do a lot

of damage. But I can't imagine where they would use one 6 times the

power of a Hiroshima bomb.

 

I'm not entirely clear as to the explosive capacity of the bombs that

they are planning to use. I think you're right that the ones that are

being contempla ted to be delivered, let's say, with B-52 bombers,

wouldn't be the larger ones, o.k? They would be delivered in much the

same way as the conventional bunker buster bombs; it's the B-61-11,

which is the nuclear version of the conventional blue 1-13. I think

those are in fact probably of the order of about ½ of the Hiroshima

bomb.

 

But I think when we see that this process is unleashed - once this

process is triggered, we may be in a situation where the U.S. military

is landing several nuclear devices in different parts of Iran and we

must understand - and that's also very important - is that Iran has

the capacity to retaliate in many different ways. It has stated that

it will retaliate. It has acquired rather sophisticated air defense

systems. Russia has delivered the equipment to it.

 

This war which is contemplated by its architects as an aerial

operation, could well lead into a ground war. ok? The whole idea of

Con Plan is that you don't have any deployment of ground troops, and

in fact, you have minimal risk for your air force.

 

But what happens if Iran decides to confront U.S. troops stationed in

Iraq across the border, in northern Iraq? What happens if Iran

retaliates and sends its own missiles towards U.S. facilities in the

Persian Gulf or Israel for that matter? So we are dealing with an

extremely dangerous scenario.

 

People don't realize - I don't think the military planners realize

themselves the implications of this military agenda. And we are in a

situation where in fact the military planners, the people who actually

devise the bombing strategies, not the politicians necessarily, they

actually don't realize that these nuclear weapons are in fact, nuclear

weapons because the military manuals that they consult and which have

been drafted by the science labs and the weapons factories and so on,

stipulate that these tactical nuclear weapons are " harmless to

civilians " because the explosion is underground. Now when a 3-star

general picks up the military manual, and says " ha, ha, here we are, it

explains that these weapons are harmless to civilians, let's go ahead

and use them " . And so what we have is a situation where the authors

of this military propaganda, in fact, are feeding this propaganda to

their ow n command, their own military command structures, so that those

who devise the propaganda believe in the propaganda which they

themselves are promoting. And that's a very dangerous situation when

people actually believe within the system, within the command system -

high ranking officers, 3-star generals, 4-star generals - actually

believe that these nuclear weapons are harmless, well then we are really

in a fix because all the safeguards which have protected us from a

nuclear holocaust have been literally broken down.

 

And I don't think anybody really seriously has contemplated what is

behind this milit ary agenda. I mean there are a number of people

around the world who know and understand, but because the matter has

literally not been debated in the mainstream media, it's not the object

of media attention, it never reaches the front pages, and… Perhaps

what's going to happen is there is going to be a nuclear war in Iran and

then we are going to get a blip on the evening news, which will follow

various other news items saying " yes, there's been a nuclear war " but

they won't even say it's a nuclear war, they will say something else

because the nuclear explosions may not be acknowledged as nuclear

explosions until much later.

 

And I should mention that the bunker buster bombs and the nuclear

versions… are quite different but you can't always say whether there

is a nuclear explosion or a conventional explosion because the bunker

buster bomb creates such a (large) explosion that it could be nuclear or

it could be conventional. But of course the difference is that in one

case you have radioactive materials which are spreading over a vast area

and leading to literally the devastation of all forms of life for

millions of years.

 

And so people, I don't think realize, at what juncture we are

presently (at) in our history. I think it's absolutely devastating.

 

Well, this is something new, Michel, this use of nuclear weapons on

the battlefield. Why would they turn to nuclear weapons? Why

wouldn't they just stick to high intensity explosives?

 

Well, I think there are many different reasons to that. First of all,

there is a little bit of history.

 

Two years ago in August of 2003, in fact it was on Hiroshima Day, the

Pentagon invited the private sector, namely the military-industrial

complex, to a meeting held at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska,

Strategic Command Headquarters and at that meeting they more or less

requested the private sector to define the nuclear agenda. Previously

you had the Nuclear Posture Review, which was passed in the Senate in

the beginning of 2002. But this 2003 meeting was very important

because what it did is it privatized nuclear war. And it involved the

military contractors, the producers of weapons systems, not only in the

production side but also in the consumption side so that they actually

said to the nuclear weapons producers, well, listen, tell us how we

are going to use these weapons, we have to define a military agenda.

And so they now have in effect, they have privatized nuclear war.

 

And so that it is a market driven, profit making operation to produce

bombs because the more bombs you produce the more money yo u make, and

you have a military allocation of 450 billion dollars a year out of the

public purse, not to mention the 200 billion dollars which is

allocated to finance the war in Iraq. You are talking about something

of the order of an annual basis, which is certainly in excess of 500

billion dollars, not to mention all the black budgets and the amounts

which are channeled into shell companies, which are controlled either

by U.S. military or intelligence, and so it is a very profitable

venture for military contractors, security companies, mercenary

companies, and so on.

 

And so I think that's the consensus - and how you reach that consensus

is by building, of course, pretexts for waging war, which is what we

are dealing with - and the 'fact' that the nuclear weapons are harmless.

The war on Iran is a market driven war. It's profit for the military

contractors, and the military-industrial complex. It's profit for the

oil companies because the ultimate objective is to confiscate Iran's

oil reserves. It's to establish control over that broader area, which

is the Central Asia, Middle East area, which encompasses 70% of

(world) oil and gas reserves, and ultimately it is also intended to

confront other major economic powers in the world, namely Russia and

China, both of which have a sizeable interest in that region, and I

should say also the Europeans, the European Union.

 

But it would appear in this particular case, there is some kind of

tacit understanding with Germany and France in particular, on sharing

the spoils of war and I think that is why we are leading up to a

military operation where there will be ultimately consensus, much in

the same way as (with) Yugoslavia. When Yugoslavia was invaded and

bombed in 1999, and even before that, when Germany and NATO and the

United Nations interfered in the Yugoslav civil war in the early

nineties, there was a consensus. The consensus was between the United

States, Germany, and broadly the Western military alliance. And what

you see emerging now is pretty much the same situation . There's no

dissenting voice anywhere.

 

In fact, even the frontline Arab states including Egypt, Morocco,

Jordan, and Algeria have been sucked into this project. Early this

year several countries of the eastern Mediterranean conducted military

exercises with several Arab countries. And these countries were

conducting military exercises with Turkey and Israel. And so you can

see how, in effect, under NATO auspices they managed to bring in these

countries, at least the leaders of these countries, not necessarily the

people, but the leaders of these countries - which are increasingly

serving U.S. interest - and how they managed to put them together in

joint military exercises with Israel, so that there doesn't seem to be

much of a dissenting voice in the Middle East with regard to this

military operation directed against Iran - although if we go into a

scenario of nuclear war or even a conventional war, in other words,

conventional aerial attack, in all likelihood this war is going to

spread to the entire Middle Eastern region because at present what do

we have? We've three separate war theatres: Afghanistan, Iraq, and

Palestine.

 

But if Israel is involved in the coalition, in the Anglo-American

coalition, officially - of course unofficially it has been part of the

coalition for some time - but if Israel is officially involved in the

coalition, and if the war extends into Iran and if Turkey is involved,

you can see just by looking at the map, that whole area is going to

explode. And if nuclear weapons are used, well, the consequences of

course affect everybody on this planet because nuclear radioactive

material will spread and it will spread in a very broad area of the

world and the likelihood is the war itself could extend into other

frontiers. That region borders on the former Soviet Union; it also

borders onto China. Afghanistan has a border with China; that whole

area is militarized with U.S. military bases scattered all over the

place in the former Soviet republics and as I mentioned a ground war

is not to be excluded either. It's a very grim scenario and it means

that we have to do everything in our power in the next few months to

reverse the tide.

 

STATION BREAK

 

Next we go to the major powers, which are, I suppose, & nbsp; Russia,

China, and India, who are not very far away from even the present

fighting in Iraq and they will be even closer to the fighting that

threatens the world in Iran. I am just wondering what you think - I

think I have heard Russia say that if there are any attacks on Iran,

that it will retaliate in some way. China is certainly not going to be

happy about things that are going on there. I don't think I've heard

anything from…

 

But on the other hand, neither China nor Russia have really made any

statements overtly in the diplomatic arena. Now Russia is supporting

Iran in terms of weapons delivery - that we know. I mean even though

the Russians are not making any public statements, but that's part of

the game. I mean, that goes back to the Cold War era that…Vladimir

Putin is not going to make any controversial statement directed

against the U.S. military agenda.

 

I think there was some statement that came from one of …the

minister of defense or something like that. It wasn't a statement

from Putin…

 

No, that's entirely possible that people in the Russian parliament, in

the Russian military, can make certain statements about what's going

on. But again they are very cautious and they also have their own

hidden agenda.

 

But I think we have to take very seriously the fact that the Russians

are supplying Iranians with an air defense system, a very sophisticated

air defense system. They have actually also assisted the Iranians to

establish a satellite, a spy satellite network, which will give them

early warnings of an Israeli attack and so they signed a very large

contract with Russia to put this spy satellite into orbit. This was

actually confirmed in the Sunday Times report recently, and so we are

not simply - we are dealing with a situation where in fact Iran has

the capabilities - perhaps it doesn't the capabilities to challenge

the United States military but it certainly has the capabilities of

defending itself to a limited degree and it has also the capability of

responding and those capabilities.

 

We are talking about a country of some 60 million people. It's not a

small dot on the map. It has a very educated population. They have

capabilities to address this aggression and I suspect that people in

Iran will rally behind the president irrespective of whether they

support him or not. That's a logical reaction which occurs in times

of war. So it certainly is something to bear in mind. I sincerely

wish it would be part of our election campaign here in Canada. It

should be part of the election campaign. There we have a war, an

ongoing war in Iraq, and the next phase of this war has a lready been

announced and the next phase of this war could be as deadly as the

ongoing phase of this war.

 

But you don't think that in the event of aggression against Iran there

would be any sort of military reaction from Russia or China at all?

 

I don't think that there would be any reaction from Russia or China

directly, no. There may be military cooperation between Russia and

Iran, which is in any event ongoing. But I think the nature of

diplomacy is that these two competing powers, they don't wash their

dirty linen in public so to speak. When they meet with their

counterparts, the United Nations or wherever or the G8, it's all very

polite.

 

Now, there are very important divisions which prevail. There are

important divisions within the western alliance as well and so…I think

what is really needed at this juncture, first of all, (is that) some

countervailing diplomacy has to occur.

 

It's very important that citizens actually pressure their governments

to take a stance on this, to take a stance nationally and

internationally. In other words, what do political leaders in Canada

believe of an impending nuclear holocaust by their closest ally, the

United States of America? And this something very serious, it's not

fiction.

 

Now, how can we reverse the tide? Well, we can reverse the tide at

several levels. I don't think it's necessarily through massive

demonstrations and so on, and walking through the streets we are going

to achieve it. We are going to achieve that by ultimately unseating

the military agenda, by unseating the people behind it. In other

words by questioning the legitimacy of the main political and military

actors and the people who support them. And essentially we are

dealing with the Bush administration and so I think that is very

important.

 

But if for instance in Canada, in Western Europe, there would be

debate in national parliaments, where leaders would be

confronted…because in effect it is a conspiracy of silence; nobody is

talking about it.

Political leaders are not mentioning it; they are not saying they are

for or against.

 

But there has been absolutely no dissenting voice (that) has occurred

in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. ok? And in a sense this

particular phase of the war is far more serious than the previous one,

because it is the first time that coalition partners Israel, Britain

and the United States, have actually confirmed their intention to use

nuclear weapons against Iran. We are not dealing with some abstract

statement.

 

We are dealing with a pre-emptive nuclear doctrine and that

pre-emptive nuclear doctrine has already been formulated in quite a

number of texts of the U.S. military. & n bsp; It's confirmed in

speeches of the U.S. president and statements by the U.S. military.

And unfortunately our anti-war movement is not always aware of these

developments and doesn't address them. So that anti-war sentiments

from my point of view (are) not enough if we are going to build an

anti-war movement based on " Hey, Bush, we are against you " and send

postcards or petitions to whoever. That is not enough. We need to

dismantle the decision-making process behind the war agenda and that

means unseating the rulers who are supporting this particular course

of action.

 

I want to turn the last question around and I want to ask in this

march towards global domination by the U.S. and the New World Order

forces, do you think there would come a time where New World Order

forces would militarily attack either Russia or China or are they

getting what they want from those countries now? I mean in terms of

economic activity and so forth? Maybe they wouldn't even have to

think in terms of that type of activity.

 

Well there is no question that the National Security doctrine does

target China and Russia. Officially in the Nuclear Posture Review of

2002, which was leaked to the Los Angeles Times, China and Russia are

explicitly identified as targets for pre-emptive nuclear attacks. Now

it is not to say that is anything new because they have always been a

target going back to the Cold War era. But the fact that they would

be officially identified as targets when in fact they are considered to

be allies, at least Russia is considered to be a friend of America,

China a bit less. But the fact that they would be officially identified

as rogue states, so to speak, indicates that the ultimate objective of

this military agenda is global, economic and military domination, and

the two remaining super powers in the world, Russia and China, are the

targets.

 

Now you are absolutely right, they already exert significant influence

in the area of economic activity, for instance. China now has opened

its borders to western banks. Western banks can simply go in and take

over the domestic banking business - something which we don't even have

in Canada. We don't have foreign banks in Canada, at least not

operating freely in an unregulated environment and Citigroup has just

acquired very large banking stakes in China. China is the provider of

a large share of what we c onsume on a day-to-day basis, produced in

cheap labour factories.

 

I mean this idea that China is somehow a competing economic power I

think has to be qualified because in effect China is really an

economic-industrial colony of the West. Without China the whole

retail trade would collapse overnight because most of the commodities

that we buy in supermarkets and shopping centres are produced in China,

at least the consumer durables are produced in China. And so, I think

that those inroads into the Chinese economy through inroads in terms of

banking - the outsourcing in the manufacturing sectors - all this is

happening and it indicates in effect that China is not really a

sovereign country; it may have certain appearance of being sovereign but

the way it's international trade is organized, its links to

international financial institutions and so on makes it very, very much

dependent on Western markets and so on.

 

And that I think is also ultimately part of the military and strategic

agenda. Conquest is not strictly based on invading, conquering and so

on and taking over countries; it's also based on overseeing the domestic

banking system, taking over trade, using country' s resources to produce

cheap commodities for the Western markets and so on and so forth. And

that's certainly true in China.

 

Russia is somewhat of a different arrangement, but there you can see

that Western financial and industrial interests have already made

significant inroads into the former Soviet Union. The International

Monetary Fund is calling the shots with regard to macro-economic

reform. Large amounts of what used to belong to the Soviet state, of

state capital and assets, have been transferred into private hands and

many of the large companies operating now in Russia, of course, are

foreign owned.

 

Yes, absolutely, the military agenda is one aspect. War and

globalization go hand and hand and the extension of the Free Market is

supported in turn by the military agenda.

 

Is it possible that the U.S. could over-extend itself in terms of

military spending and their economy coul d collapse to the point where

it couldn't sustain an ongoing New World Order military agenda?

 

Well, I certainly think that perhaps we are already in that situation.

It is over-extended so not much in the capacity to finance, but

certainly it is over-extended in the capabilities that it can deploy,

mainly, essentially manpower - the fact that it still need troops on the

ground and this particular operation, in fact, the Con Plan, it's

rationale is really to minimize the use of troops. You don't need to

put any boots on the ground. You go in with your missiles, smart

bombs, and B-52 bombers and essentially (inflict) large damage to Iran

in this particular case, and you don't need to send in any ground

troops. But again that scenario in a sense is very theoretical

because even an aerial type of military operation could well result in

unintended consequences, which eventually lead into a ground war. And

I don't think the United States can afford another ground war at this

stage.

 

How cost effective are these nuclear weapons in terms…as opposed to

conventional weapons in terms of effecting damage to targets? Do you

know?

 

I really don't know what…I don't know how much they cost to

produce. The thing is that you don't really need to have nuclear

weapons to incur damage to these facilities. You could go in with

conventional weapons and the damage, the actual damage through

explosion, is enough to wipe it out.

 

Bombs, for instance dead weight bombs, are cheaper to deliver than

bombs on the heads of cruise missiles.

 

Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, that's correct. But the nuclear

weapons can be delivered also from a B-52. You don't need to…you

can use cruise missiles to deliver them but you can also use US long

range bombers, which are deployed out of Diego Garcia in the Indian

Ocean, and they can carry both nuclear as well as conventional bombs.

And so I don't think there's much of a consideration - as far as

delivery is concerned, these new tactical nuclear weapons, the

mini-nukes, can be delivered much in the same way as a conventional

bunker buster bomb.

 

In fact, from a military standpoint, there is very little advantage in

using a nuclear device; the only difference that I can see is that the

nuclear device will kill more people both in the short as well as the

long run. But if it's a question of destroying a building or

facilities, they can be easily done through run of the mill conventional

weapons. But I don't think ultimately that is the purpose of this

military operation. The purpose of this military operation is not to

disable the nuclear facilities; the purpose is to ult imately destroy

a country and to implement very significant civilian casualties, which

then opens the door for the conquest of Iran, its oil facilities and

so on.

 

The more fundamental question is when you use nuclear weapons without

really assessing the underlying consequences this opens a Pandora's Box

and it leads to….Pandora's Box is not the correct designation…it

opens the road, essentially, to a much broader war which could

threaten the future of humanity as we know it, and that's not an

understatement.

 

Do you think Iran has any capability of lobbing or sending some sort

of a large bomb or weapon over to Tel Aviv?

 

Well they have the capabilities of retaliating that's for sure, and

they have their own generation of ballistic missiles which they intend

to use and this is certainly well understood. The Iranians also have

these Russian Tor M-1 anti-missile systems. Certainly they do have

the capabilities of responding.

 

Now the Israelis also have a very sophisticated air defense system.

But whatever actually occurs, as soon as - because we have to see the

logic really of a military confrontation - as soon as they retaliate,

the United States is going to retaliate and Israel is going to

retaliate, and they are going to retaliate with more nuclear weapons.

So the logic of retaliation in this particular case opens up again the

possibility of escalation. I mean that's really what we have to

address is the fact if the Iranians decide to retaliate, which they

said they will do, and I believe they will, then we expect the

American will again retaliate in retaliation.

 

So Israel is also sitting there with, I don't know…a couple hundred of

nuclear ICBM weapons that could be used too at some point.

 

Well. that is correct, because Israel is the fourth or fifth nuclear

power in the world today. Its nuclear arsenal is said to be more

advanced and sophisticated than that of Great Brita in. But the

discussions that I've seen so far do not mention this nuclear arsenal;

they don't mention their nuclear arsenal. What they mention is the

use of tactical nuclear weapons so that at this stage they are not

talking about using their own nuclear warheads. They are talking

about using the (U.S.-supplied) min-nukes, but you are absolutely right,

if this whole conflict expands and leads to escalation, there is a

possibility, of course, that they might decide to use their own

thermonuclear weapons against Iran.

 

Yeah. Well, on that note and in summing up, do you want to take a few

minutes to maybe again tell people what you think they should be doing

and maybe giving out some contacts?

 

Well, I think we have to - again, the time span is very, very short.

We have to certainly move very swiftly and establish very consist

anti-war networks across the land, which are not necessarily geared

towards major street marches - those consume a lot of energy - they

are necessary, but they are not sufficient. We have to start

confronting our political leaders, who are complicit in this war agenda.

 

Canada is involved in the war in Afghanistan, Haiti; it is involved in

joint consultations with the United States leading up to its

membership in Northern Command, which is also on the agenda of joint

Canada-U.S.

negotiations. So I think (Canadians) have to express our dissent in

relation to this military agenda and we have to ultimately also

challenge the people who are making these decisions on our behalf and we

are not going to send them a petition and ask them please, Mr. So and

so, Prime Minister, would you be so kind as not to wage war on Iran.

That kind of action is, I think, ineffective because it ultimately

accepts the legitimacy of those who are actually conducting the war,

and these wars are criminal. They are a violation of international

law, and we have to ultimately unseat the main political and military

actors, which are pushing for this war against Iran, as well as the

war and the illegal occupation of Iraq, which are part of the same

broad military agenda. So that I think is absolutely crucial.

 

We have to start the challenge at all levels, municipal, provincial,

federal, international and we ultimately have to educate the public.

 

We have to confront the media—the media is complicit in this project

because if it were doing its job it would at least be informing people

of the devastating impacts of a nuclear holocaust and it would be

explaining to people the use of tactical nuclear weapons means nuclear

war. There is no other way of saying it.

 

And when the United States embarks on a military adventure in which

nuclear weapons are presented as some kind of peacekeeping instrument,

essentially we can see on what course we are. We are really going to

go down the tube so to speak. I mean down the drain, and that's a

self-destructive statement because it presents war as a peacekeeping

operation and it presents nuclear weapons as some kind of harmless toy

and military analysts are fully aware of the implications. Again they

are too 'polite' to ultimately address these issues in a broad public

arena.

 

Well, o.k., Michel. People shoul d also check into the website which

you are involved with: http://globalresearch.ca . Check in for

information.